


Forever Ago

by pyreneeees



Category: Saturday Night Live RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:51:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyreneeees/pseuds/pyreneeees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever Ago

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annakovsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/gifts).



Amy knew, as soon as Will picked up, that she had done something wrong. 'Hi' was Will code for, 'You fucked up, and now you have to guess how.' She was coming off a six-hour shoot for the finale, and she really, really didn't have the energy for this.

""What's up?" she said. "I'm sorry, I couldn't call until now. Greg wouldn't let us leave."

"Yeah," he said. "I figured. I made dinner, by the way. Just thought you'd want to know."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said. "I'll pick up some beer on the way home. Is there anything you want?"

"Don't bother," he said. There was a short, sharp silence, and then the phone clicked dead. Will loved to hang up on her. If she had to list his three favorite activities right now, they would be: hanging up on her, walking away from her, and turning over in the bed, leaving her to stare at the wall of his back.

She shoved the phone in her purse and went to open her car. Across the lot, Nick was leaning against his truck, on the phone with Megan. He laughed, a real Nick laugh, hearty and surprised. Megan had shown up on set yesterday, carting a giant basket full of meat products. The whole cast took a break for an hour to eat beef jerky and listen to Megan's stories about Happy Endings.

Nick sat there quietly, his eyes never leaving his wife. They were doing well, Amy thought. At this age, especially, you could tell.

She thought about calling Will back. He liked the chance to forgive her; it was a pattern that worked at this point. The night would be easier if she called and apologized.

"Amy," Nick called from across the lot. "Tell Will I'm going to kick his ass this week."

They were in a fantasy football league together, along with Rainn Wilson and Craig Robinson and a bunch of writers from The Office. She wouldn't relay the message, but she laughed. "Will do," she said. "Tell Megan I'll be updating our period blog tomorrow."

"Disgusting," he said. "Good work today. See you tomorrow." He got into his car and pulled out of the lot.

She didn't want to go home yet, but what else was there to do? Adam had gone home to his girlfriend, and Aziz was  
rehearsing for his tour. She thought about calling Tina, but the idea made her feel slightly sick. Instead, she dialed Seth's number.

"Foldy!" he said as soon as he picked up. "I'm glad you called. I was just about to eat a family pack of corn dogs."

"Don't pretend you're not still going to do that," she said. "I think I hear you eating one right now."

"So what," he said around a mouthful of corn dog. "Talking to you doesn't demand my full attention. It's more of a half-brain activity."

"Ha ha," she said. There was a pause, a nice one — the two of them settling in to the conversation. "We just finished shooting the finale."

"No way," he said. "Big stuff. How'd it go?"

"Great. I feel a little weird ending the show on a wedding — because of 30 Rock, you know?" she said. "But it's probably not a big deal."

"It's a huge deal," he said. "I'm going to kill Tina for doing this to you. Do we have an opportunity for sabotage?"

"I have slept with most of the production crew."

"Perfect. I knew there was a reason NBC gave you that show."

"It's purely sexual nepotism."

"Sex-potism," he said.

"That is terrible," she said. "How's SNL?"

"It's fine," he said. "If we do another Stefon skit, Bill and I are going to fulfill our suicide pact. The new kids are pretty good, though."

"I haven't been watching," she said, realizing that he might find that offensive. "I need to catch up."

"You lead a busy life."

"I don't know if that's true. I do floss a lot."

"Yeah, tell me about it. Do you still carry it around with you?"

“Obviously. The road to fame is paved with oral hygiene."

He laughed, then paused. "How's Will?"

He knew there were problems. He was the only one, outside of the two of them. She didn't want to tell Tina or Rachel. It would make things weird when they all got together, and Will would notice it. 

But Seth and Will had never gotten along, not even when they were first dating. Will thought Seth was hamming for the camera all the time, playing up his awkward-puppy look. "He wants us to think he's not a dick," Will always said. "But a guy can tell."

"Oh, the same," she said. "Shitty. He's mad because Greg kept us late. I'm not excited about dealing with that one."

Seth paused. "You want to get a drink?"

"I can't," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, and she could picture him shaking his head to clear it. "Obviously. We'll talk soon."

But they wouldn't, would they? Not anymore.

***

Amy thought a lot about Seth these days. She should have been thinking about Will or the kids, but her mind got stuck on him. Sometimes she would sit at her desk for half an hour before she realized she’d been staring into space, daydreaming. 

She saw him on SNL from time to time. He was growing laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, and no one would mistake him for 30 anymore. She wondered if she looked the same way, and when, exactly, they had stopped being the two newest members of Saturday Night Live and started being old people. 

They had just been so young when they met. How could you keep feeling like a kid your whole life, when you had actually been that way once – fresh-faced and daring willing to do anything on stage, willing to piss on your scene partner it would get a laugh? People had never called her pretty, but it stung to realize that they might start calling her old. 

The first time she and Seth talked, she had been leaving the SNL studios after their first rehearsal. It had been a hard night -- Lorne stone-faced and terrifying, the cast members quiet. Coming from UCB, where everyone knew her, it made her want to throw up.

Seth was standing outside, smoking a cigarette, when she opened the door. He was so young and pale and thin, and his skinny tie was doing nothing to make him look cool. For a half-second, she fell in love with him.

“So how many times did you shit your pants tonight?” he said.

It caught her off guard, but she laughed. “Too many to count.”

He nodded. “The human mind cannot conceive of a number that high.” 

And just like that, she stopped being in love with him, and started wanting to be the best friend he ever had.

They quickly became inseparable, the way you do when you're new with someone else. They started going out to drink after every rehearsal. She found out he drank cosmopolitans like a girl, and he found out that she couldn't shoot pool to save her life. They stumbled into a million dark bars together, hit on a million strangers with fake personalities they came up with for each other. Amy's favorite was still Seth's creation for her, the Russian dominatrix "Iha."

"Iha?" she said, when he came up with it.

"Yeah, you just call yourself 'Iha' the whole night," he said. "And then when you hand over your number, you write down Iha Vapenis."

He could always make her laugh, always. Even after Lorne screamed at them for laughing during Weekend Update; even when the host was a total dick and demanded Amy get him coffee as if she were an intern. They would go to Dublin 6, prop their elbows up on the bar, and tell jokes as if they weren’t on the most famous sketch show in America.

One night, they ended up in a 7-11 around midnight, where Amy got into a conflict over the price of a hot dog with the cashier. 

"It's a stale hot dog, sir!" she yelled, as Seth hustled her outside. "You can't charge full price for something that's been sitting out that long!"

Seth was cracking up, despite the fact that he was wearing a candy necklace and Jimmy Fallon's fedora and looked ridiculous.

"You can never leave it alone," he said. "If we ever don't end the night with you trying to haggle down the price of a tornado roll -- "

"It's called a twister roll."

"You're right. I'm sorry." 

She glared at him. "I just think it's extortion to charge the same price for a hot dog at 8 A.M. that you do at 1 A.M."

"Do you eat hot dogs at 8 A.M. too? I knew there was a reason you smelled that way."

She punched him on the arm, and he laughed. The night was clear and brisk, and the smell reminded her of Chicago, all fresh wind and big buildings. She tugged Seth's jacket around her and looked up at the sky. Everything felt right these days, like she had finally arrived at the place she was supposed to be. 

Seth put an arm around her. "Bright lights, big city," he said, and it sounded so ridiculous that they both started laughing again.

****

It was like that every night for years, or at least it felt that way in retrospect. Every night, Seth grabbed his messenger bag after rehearsal and winked at her -- "You look ridiculous when you do that," she said, but he just laughed -- and they went off to Dublin.

They saw each other through everything. When guys dumped her, which seemed to happen with frightening regularity, she called Seth. And vice versa. One night he called her, clearly drunk.

"It's Seth," he said. "Seth Meyers."

"I don't believe I know a Seth Meyers," she said.

"Your dear friend Seth Meyers."

"Ah yes, light of my life Seth Meyers," she said, grinning. "What can I do for you?"

He sighed, and she realized that he wasn't kidding around. 

"I got dumped," he said. "Bridget dumped me."

Bridget had been the latest in a long string of 22-year-old New York improviser girls, who were always charmed by an SNL player until they inevitably fucked a guy on their team. The last one had dumped him outside the theater, after her show. "But thanks for coming!!!" she had said, which she and Seth repeated to each other at various strains of hysteria. 

Seth was at the bar when she got there, leaning morosely over a glass. "Hey," he said. "You may have heard that Bridget and I are through."

"I do read the paper," she said, but he didn't laugh.

"She said I was too old for her," he said. "Isn't that the most fucking depressing thing you've ever heard? I thought men weren't supposed to get too old."

"Plus, you literally look like you're twelve."

"Yeah," he said. "She said I'm too old, and I don't know what I want with my life, and I don't own a can opener."

"You don't own a can opener?"

"I do own one," he said. "I just couldn't find it, and she laughed and said that's exactly what my life is like — I only have one of everything, and I never know where it is. Like that's the crime of the century."

"Is that supposed to mean something? Like, is it a metaphor for something?"

"Right!" he said. "What on earth could it mean to not be able to find your can opener? But she said it was serious. She called me a 'man boy.'"

She laughed despite herself. "Well, you are kind of a man boy."

He didn't look at her, just moaned at his drink.

"Hey, that's okay," she said. "Men boys are in right now. Basically every movie that comes out is about the inability of men to mature. You're just with the times."

He shook his head, and when he spoke, finally, it came out quietly. "I don't want to be like that."

"Oh, Seth," she said. "I was kidding. You're not like that. You're not an irresponsible asshole. You're the best guy I know."

He looked up at her, and his face was so sad, the kind of sadness that settles deep into the lines around your mouth. She felt a desperate tugging in her chest.

"Seth," she said.

He leaned over his stool towards her, and before she could do anything to stop it, his mouth was on hers. He tasted like whiskey and toothpaste, and his lips were soft and loose. She put her hands on the side of his head and held him there until he pulled away. 

"I'm sorry," he said. "Fuck. Sorry."

"It's fine," she said. 

"Yeah," he said, and a smile cracked the corner of his mouth. "Yeah."

"Let's get you home," she said, and they wandered the ten blocks together, holding hands.

It was like that for years. Their careers moved, and stalled, and sputtered, and moved again. Coworkers and boyfriends and girlfriends came and went. Their friendship stayed. If she could go back to her early-30s self and give herself one gift, she would hold her hands tight and say, "Look at this. Don't miss it. This is your life."

****

She got home around eleven from rehearsal. The kids were sound asleep in their beds. She smoothed the covers and kissed Archie's forehead, breathing in his little-boy scent.

Will was in bed too, but awake, on his computer. They didn't speak as she put on her pajamas. She climbed in next to him, staring down at her hands, too anxious to look at him straight on.

"Dinner's in the fridge," he said, and turned to face the wall.

She didn't know what to say to that. He could never do anything for her these days without pointing it out to her, making her feel like she didn't deserve it. 

"Babe," she said, but he didn't move, and after a few minutes, she realized he was asleep.

****

The next week was dark and cold. She stayed with the kids most days, except for occasional runs to the set or the grocery store. Will was still filming for Up All Night, and they didn't talk much. He would text her from work — Dinner? or Where are you?

On Thursday, she went out with Tina and Maya for dinner. It was weird being around Maya now, she had to admit. She didn't know if Will talked to her (or, come to think of it, if he talked to anyone), but she got the sense that Maya knew. It wasn't hard to miss. They hardly ever came anywhere together these days, and Will was always, always pissed off.

She thought so much about where things had gone wrong. If someone had told her at the wedding, "In eight years, your husband will hardly speak to you," she would have laughed at them. The first few years — of dating, and then of marriage — had been balmy. Clear skies.

For the first year, they had stayed up late almost every night, thinking of sitcom ideas and writing spec scripts. Will had watched the Blue Jays on the couch while she read, her feet in his lap. She had thought, over and over again, that if marriage was supposed to be hard, she didn't see it. Her marriage was easy. Her marriage was perfect.

They started fighting during the filming for Spring Breakdown, which should have been a sign that the movie itself would be a complete failure. Will didn't like that was wasting her time with a project that they should have done in their mid-20s, and she didn't like that he was obsessed with people noticing him. And they did, now, all the time. Overnight, in the wave of Arrested Development's success, he had gone from a nobody to a superstar. It was clear to her how much he liked it.

Maybe they had just stopped liking each other. She knew she had changed too, become more driven and career-focused and obsessed with her own show. She couldn't help it. Parks and Rec was as much her kid as Abel and Archie were. But Will had never had anything like that — not a show that was his, that belonged to him entirely — and he resented it. He didn't even think her show was that funny.

So that was it, maybe. They had stopped being charmed by each other. They had stopped laughing. And then they had found other people. 

She didn't want to think about it anymore. 

She met Tina and Maya at the restaurant. Tina was wearing her usual outfit, sparkly jewelry and a low-cut tank top. Amy liked it, actually. Tina looked polished, in a way she never had when they were younger.

"My dear, come this way," Tina said in the fake-British accent they used too much with each other. "You simply must see what Maya has done with the back of her hair."

"Oh, I'm sure it's simply dreadful," Amy said. "What hast thou done, Maya dearest?"

"Please shut up," Maya said. "And it's not a big deal. I may have accidentally shaved off part of my hair."

Tina and Amy cracked up. "How do you accidentally do that?" Amy said. "It can't be that hard to shave your beard."

"Hilarious."

"She's going to have to wear a wig for the show," Tina said. "So I said that I think we should all wear wigs for our finales."

"Except me," Amy said. "Since I already wear one."

"Right, except you."

"It's not funny," Maya said. "We're supposed to do this dance number on the talk show during our finale. I can't have a wig flopping around, people already think I look ridiculous as it is."

"Welcome to the world of funny-looking women on television," Tina said. "I think you'll find it quite pleasant."

"It has treated me well," Amy said.

"Just don't tell Will," Maya said pointedly at her. "He looks amazing, and I feel like I'm getting frumpier every day. Fucking men."

"He is almost troublingly tan," Tina said.

"Well, his side of the bed is a tanning booth," Amy said.

"And yours is — "

"Mine is an ice chamber," Amy said. "Where all women sleep."

"Ah yes."

"I hate you both," Maya said. "I just wanted to drink an entire bottle of wine and complain about my hair."

"That's next," Tina said. "Let me get the waiter."

****

She woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. Will was already out of bed, and she could smell bacon cooking downstairs. She padded softly into the kitchen, her stomach tight.

"Hey babe," he said. He pulled her into a one-armed hug, and a sweet spray of relief burst through her. "You were sleeping like an angel up there."

"Like a disgusting, drooly angel."

"I wasn't going to mention that," he said. "But now that you say it, I took some pictures of you."

She smiled up at him, and miraculously, he smiled back. "You must have slept well."

"Yeah, it was good," he said. "I thought we could take the boys out today. Spend our millions on some toys."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer, breathing in the deep, spicy Will scent. He always smelled like Christmas, or someone's grandfather — musky and dark and comforting.

They took the car and went to Brinker's Toys, where Archie and Abel tore around like a pair of tiny hurricanes and knocked over an entire display of stuffed animals. She and Will sat on a couch near the back, holding hands. Will rubbed her arm absentmindedly, the crook of his armpit warm against her shoulder.

It was a good day, the kind they hadn't had in a long time. They watched the other parents, and Will cracked jokes under his breath. When she pulled Archie into her lap to look at a toy dinosaur he found, she could feel Will looking at her, smiling.

After the store, they went to the park and walked through the crystal garden. Abel was scared of the glass monster figurines, and Will had to pick him up. She held Archie's hand and smiled as they passed people, and for once, it didn't feel like they were celebrities. They were just a normal family, in a normal park, being normally happy.

They put the kids to bed early and retired to the couch with a bottle of wine. Amy put her feet up in Will's lap, and he rubbed them and talked about the show.

"Oh God," she said. "Did you find out about Maya's hair?"

He started laughing. "She thinks no one knows," he said. "And it's so obvious. Apparently they're going to have to create an entire wig out of horse hair."

"You cannot tell her that you know," Amy said. "She'll go crazy. I don't know why she's so obsessed with this, but it's a real issue."

"I would never tell her," Will said. "You haven't seen her when she gets mad. Sometimes I swap out her scripts with fake ones where her character gets killed off. She is terrifying to watch.” 

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," she said, and just the words brought a pot of nerves to the boil. She pushed it down. "Seth and Alexi broke up."

She wasn't sure what she had expected, but Will had stopped smiling, and he looked like he was fighting very hard not to roll his eyes. "Oh yeah?" he said. "Well, I saw that coming."

"Huh. I didn't. I thought they were good together. She's a little young."

"He's a little — " Will caught her eye. "Never mind."

The wine caught up with her suddenly, and she felt her face getting warm. "What?"

"Come on, babe," he said. "He's an asshole. We don't need to talk about it."

No, they didn't. "I just think it's been long enough that you can stop saying that."

And there it was. She hadn't brought it up in so long -- a year, maybe, a little more. like the early days, two years ago, when every mistake she made was like lighting a fuse.

"It's never going to be long enough," Will said. 

She used to think that wasn't true. She thought that with enough time, he could handle it -- people did, didn't they? Other people did. Things happened in a marriage, bad things that you didn't expect when you exchanged vows. Nobody slid a wedding ring onto a girl's finger and thought, "Even if you cheat on me, I'll forgive you." But people made mistakes, and you forgave them.

Or you didn't. 

****

It happened during a bad patch, right after Spring Breakdown was released and got panned. Nobody saw it; nobody knew about it. One critic called it a "shapeless disaster." And Amy was feeling that way herself. Parks and Rec was about to premier, and everyone she knew was saying, "So, The Office, but for parks, right?" She didn't want to step into Steve Carrell's massive shoes. She didn't want to be a woman who couldn't come up with her own idea. 

She was working all the time on the premier, and Will was in a weird place -- still aimless after the end of Arrested Development, still waiting for a movie that kept getting delayed and canceled and re-upped and delayed again. She knew they should have taken solace in each other. That was what you were supposed to do when things got hard. 

But the funny, charming, ridiculous Will was gone, and in his place was a guy who didn't even seem to like her. When people made jokes about her new show, he laughed with them. He stopped holding her every night before they went to bed.

The only person she could talk to was Seth.

Of course it was the biggest cliche on the planet, cheating on your husband with your co-worker. The first time it happened, she didn't expect it at all. Will had taken the kids to his parents' house for the weekend, which was what he did when he was feeling annoyed and restless. She had called Seth to come over, but the house was too big and quiet and weird. 

He took her to his place. Walking into his apartment felt right, as if everything was clicking into place behind her.

"Is something going on with Will?" he said after a while. She was drinking a glass of wine, and she remembered staring at it for a long time, trying to decide if it was half-full based on the curve of the glass. 

"I don't know," she said, finally. "I think it's hard to know."

"Hard how?"

"You know," she said. "When something has been happening for so long, and so slowly? You don't even know how it started, or if it was ever any different."

He chuckled, then stopped when she frowned. "Can you be a little more specific?"

"I - " she paused, and the pause seemed to take forever, because saying what she wanted to say was impossible. "I don't think he loves me anymore."

Seth just sat there. He didn't say anything.

She couldn't take it -- she had never been able to handle silence -- so she just started talking. She told him everything, all the silence and the anger and the not laughing at her jokes. She talked until she had basically told him the entire history of her life and marriage, and he didn't do anything but sit there and look at her. His eyes didn't leave her the whole time.

"I can't do it anymore," she said, and the words burst out of her painfully. "I can't. I can't do it, I'm so unhappy." 

"Hey, hey," he said, and put his arms around her. He was close and warm and so much smaller than Will. It was like hugging your high school boyfriend. 

When she pulled away from the hug, the look on his face was strange. She couldn't tell if he was about to cry or smile, and something about the crooked line of his mouth just broke her heart.

"Seth," she said, and then she was kissing him.

It was rough, almost painful – different from any kiss she’d ever had. She didn't think; she just pulled his jacket off and put her arms around his neck, pushed her tongue into his mouth.

He pushed her back into the door and pressed the length of his body against hers. She reached down and rubbed her hand against his dick, hot and hard through his sweatpants. When she tightened her grip, he gasped.

"Amy, Amy," he said. The sound of her name in his mouth was incredible. "Should we -- should we not -- "

She couldn't think about that. If she started thinking about it, it would be too late, and her married would be ruined and she'd be a bad mother and she wouldn't deserve anything she had. So she pushed it down, and she let him pick her up and push her against the wall, wrapping her legs around his waist.

It wasn't a great angle; he was too short, and she was too heavy, but he was kissing her as if he didn't want to stop to breathe. 

"Seth," she said, and he let her go. She pulled him to the bedroom and pushed him onto the edge of the bed. He put his hands in her hair, thick and deep, when she knelt down in front of him.

"Holy shit," he said. She pulled his cock out of his boxers and looked at it. She went to take him in her mouth, but something caught in her chest, and she couldn’t –- she couldn’t. She sat there for a second, staring. 

He must have realized, because he pulled her up by the shoulders, until she was on top of him. "Let me fuck you," he said, voice strained. "Please."

She pushed him backwards onto the bed, and he choked out a laugh. "Always in control of the scene," he said. "You should have brought your power suit."

"Shut up," she said. She lifted up her skirt and pulled her underwear aside. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought, _This is it. This is the moment, and you can never go back._ And then she took Seth's cock in her hand and slid it inside her.

He was thicker than she was used to, and fuck, it must have been a while, because she was so tight. It took a few breaths to get used to, and then she settled into a rhythm, letting his cock slide into her and drag back out, feeling his pelvis grind up against her when she took him all the way in. She put her hands on his shoulders, and he looked at her with something like astonishment. As if he wanted to believe it, and couldn't.

"Amy," he said, and started bucking his hips up into her. She squeezed her thighs against him and started to rock, faster, letting her orgasm climb its faithful path. When she came, she saw him open his mouth, and then everything was stars, exploding and falling behind her eyes.

She sat there for a little while after she came, not moving, not looking at him. Finally, she climbed off and turned onto her side, and he draped his arm over her. She was still wearing her tank top from the night before, and her wedding ring.

She didn't mean to fall asleep, but when she woke up, it was dark. "Shit," she said. "Shit. The kids."

"Will has them," he said. Seth saying Will's name -- she could never take that back. It ripped something out of her that would never fit the same way again. 

She turned onto her side and started to cry, very softly. Seth came and sat on the end of the bed and rubbed her calf. He whispered something over and over again. She thought he was saying, "Okay.”

****

She wanted to stop after that. Wanted to, and didn't. If she tallied the number of terrible things she did in that two month period -- and she did, all the time -- they would be endless.

When Will went out of town, she took the kids to her mom's and explained that she had to work. She went to Seth's, and they did work for SNL. The first few times, she could feel the tension crackling in the air, the mutual awareness of what they had done. The third time, he leaned over while she was writing a scene between Donna and Jerry, and put his hand between her legs. She came with her legs over his.

It started to become a thing. After rehearsal and shoots, he would meet her on set, or she would meet him at the SNL studios.

They knew the offices so well that it wasn't hard to find somewhere to fuck. They liked to talk to each other in character, which she and Will had never done and which she found weirdly arousing. Seth had never been good at impressions; it was the reason they put him on Weekend Update in the first place. But when he talked dirty in what he obviously thought was a Christopher Walken voice, she came harder than she had in years, legs cramping, knuckles turning white on the edge of the desk.

They loved to see if they could come together. It was surprisingly easy; she had never taken long, and she could hold out until Seth was ready. Every time, she would see that look on his face and start counting down: "Five, four, three -- " He usually didn't make it past three, but it was enough. As soon as she saw his eyes go blank and roll back slightly, her orgasm came in waves, pulsing through her like a slow song.

They exchanged dirty texts and gchats and emails, and she felt so alive, for the first time in a year. She woke up every day wondering when she would see him. And meanwhile, the tabloids were still describing her and Will as the perfect couple.

In April, when she had been with Seth for a little over two months, Will did an interview with People. He had been acting weird around her the whole time, or maybe she had been acting weird around him. It would make sense; she was on edge constantly, always snatching her phone away and closing her computer and never, ever mentioning Seth.

In the interview, he said, "The first time I saw her onstage, I said, 'I'm gonna marry that girl.' It took seven years!"

She couldn't stop crying.

A week later, she was taking a cab to Tina's to review some scripts for their shows. She got a text from Will: You need to cancel your plans right now. 

She should have known what it meant, but she was in a good mood; she thought he just wanted to see her. In the old days, Will would say something like that when he wanted to get her in bed. Stupid as she must have been, she had no idea until she opened the front door and saw him sitting in front of her computer.

"Two months," he said. "Please tell me this isn't true."

What could she say to that?

They fought all day. He didn't want her to stay the night, but the kids, she said. She begged him to let her stay. She had been begging him for two years, basically: to talk to her, to run to the store with her, to get pregnant again. It took so long to convince him that Abel was a good idea, and even then, there was something missing. Will loved his son, but he never looked at him the way he had with Archie, with that breathless, disbelieving happiness.

It was nobody's fault but her own. She knew that. 

****

They lasted three months after the end of the show. She came home one day, and Will was sitting at the living room table, a stack of papers in front of him.

"I don't know how to say this," he said, and of course, she knew what he was going to say. What else came after that sentence? "I think we should take some time apart."

"Like, separate vacations, or -- "

It was a stupid thing to say, and the look he gave her solidified that.

"I mean, I'm going to get my own place. I already looked into it, and I can take the boys half the week so that we can both work." He wasn't looking at her. "I don't want to be a dick, but I can't do this anymore."

She thought that she would feel something more. She thought she would sob or go crazy or break half the dishes in the house, but it just felt like the last chapter of a predictable book. Like she'd seen the murderer coming the whole time, and oh, yep, it was the deranged postman. Obviously. She nodded and started putting away the groceries. Will turned on the TV.

They told the kids a week later, and then Will moved out. He really moved out. For a week, she was almost giddy with the feeling of being alone, as if she were 25 again and in her first apartment and ready to take on the world. And then, of course, the loneliness set in. 

She thought she should be doing what all newly separated women did, which she assumed was write poetry and go on speed dates and redecorate her home. But she didn't have time. She and Tina had been asked to host the Oscars, after the success of the Golden Globes. There was work to do.

Tina didn't talk about Will, which she appreciated. She didn't need that kind of friend. They sat in silence, mostly, and drank wine and wrote jokes about Hugh Jackman, who they both weren't even sure was relevant anymore.

The only time Tina even sort-of brought it up was the night before, when they were leaving the wardrobe fitting. The air was freezing outside the studio, the sky cloudy and dark in that February way.

"Seth's introducing one of the people tomorrow, did you know?" Tina said. There was a hint of cautiousness in her voice, but maybe Amy was imagining it.

"I didn't," she said. "That's weird -- he's not in movies."

"Except New Year's Eve," Tina said.

"For which he won several Oscars," Amy said, and they both laughed, and it only bordered on painful. 

***

The show ended with a monstrous burst of applause, and she and Tina were rushed backstage, peeled out of their seventh dresses of the night.

"Well, that was fucking awesome," Tina said, and pulled her into a hug.

It had been fucking awesome. There was no other word for it. Standing on the stage, she felt undoubtedly that this was the highlight of her career. How could it not be? Parks and Rec was great, and she had been dreaming about another show, something for women, but the Oscars was a huge deal. Standing up there, with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep and Jennifer Hudson staring up at her, she felt as if she were dreaming. The whole thing was entirely surreal.

Jeff pulled up in the back of a limo, and they went to the after-party, at some club where every woman looked about 40 years younger than her. Like literal babies crawling around on the floor. She went through half a bottle of champagne with Tina and accepted congratulations from about every person on earth, including Clint Eastwood. What. 

She was halfway through her second gin and tonic when Seth's voice was suddenly next to her.

"Foldy," he said. "Nice work."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I don't believe I know you. Amy Poehler, Oscar host."

"Seth Meyers, Oscar introducer."

She laughed, and glanced around for Will. It was a habit she'd have to break, but for now -- it seemed safe. The room was almost empty, people filing out into the main dance area. 

She probably shouldn't have said it, but it had been so long, and she was so happy and tired and she just wanted to talk to him. "Wanna sit at this weirdly abandoned bar and have a drink? I think people saw me in here and realized the real movie stars are elsewhere."

"Sure," he said.

They talked for two hours, about nothing. He told her about a librarian he'd dated, who was obsessed with the idea of writing a book on him until she found out there was very little material to go on. She told him about Archie's kindergarten teacher, who wanted to keep him back a year.

"Why?" Seth said. "He's a good kid, right? Honestly, I have no idea. Kids weird me out."

"You're talking about my son, buddy," she said. "But I think it's because he ate an entire Tonka truck the other day."

"Holy shit," Seth said, and then they were both cracking up.

"I think I'm going to leave the show," he said, after a long time.

"SNL?" she said."

"No, 2 Broke Girls. Of course SNL."

The idea of SNL without him made her want to cry. "Why? You're so good."

"Eh," he said, and reached up to scratch his forehead. "When she dumped me last year, Alexi said I needed to grow out of it. Look into movies, or my own TV show, or something."

"You don't need to grow out of the number one comedy show in the country," she said. "I know people think that, but it's a fallacy. A lot of people were never as good in movies as they were on SNL."

"And some people were way, way better," he said. "Look at Will Ferrell."

"I respectfully disagree," she said.

"I don't know," he said. "I love it. Of course I love it. I just feel like I'm getting left behind. All the stars are so much younger than me now."

"You need to get Armisen back," she said.

"Don't I know it."

She put her hand over his. "You are a brilliant writer, and you're brilliant on Weekend Update," she said. "I know it's selfish, but -- God, the show would die to me if you left."

He looked at her strangely. "Really?"

"Oh God, yes," she said. "You think I'd watch it to see Nasim play a Kardashian? Not that she's not good, of course."

He stared at her, and she couldn't mistake it -- that look of love and longing and complete understanding.

"That's the nicest thing," he said. "You're the nicest person."

"You're drunk," she said, and the way he shook his head, she knew that something was changing, had changed, for good.  
"No," he said, and paused. "No. I'm in love with you. I think I have been since we met.”

It was as if the world had dropped out, and yet she felt entirely the same, as if he had said the most natural thing in the world. She thought of every night since they met, leaning over the bar at Dublin 6, grinning at each other across a scene, stumbling down New York streets arm-in-arm. She thought of every conversation, every mutual rant, every long, depressing break-up discussion over beer at her old studio.

She looked at her hands.

“I know,” she said. “I know. Me too.”

He nodded, once. “Yeah. That sucks.” 

The word was like a slap in the face, but what did she expect? There was really nothing else to say. “Yeah.” 

He put his hand on her knee. They stayed like that for a long time, in silence, not quite looking at each other. 

When the bartender came to pick up their glasses, he cleared his throat. “You’re my best friend,” he said, with the kind of seriousness that had never been a part of their friendship. They had never had to say it before.

She nodded, and pressed her mouth against his, once, for a few seconds. If she could have suspended the world and stayed right there forever – but it didn’t bear thinking about. In another world, where she and her husband and her lover weren’t famous, things might have been different.

Seth pulled away slowly, and she felt that world pull away with him, drawing back into the shimmering air of things that might have been.

****

Seth didn't leave the show, but he got a new girlfriend. She started a new show with Rachel Dratch, Career Women. The critics loved the pilot, but ratings were pretty dismal. She kept reminding herself that Parks and Rec had started the same way, and at least she had Nick Offenberg on board again. 

She and Will talked every now and then, but never about patching things up. The conversations were cold, and mostly about the kids, but she thought he seemed happier. The Arrested Development movie was slated to come out in a month, and of course, the entire country was having a conniption about it. "Do you think any man in America is having more sex than Michael Cera right now?" Tina said.

She didn't see much of Seth. They called each other sometimes, and he sent her the occasional picture of Jason Sudeikis in a bathrobe. Every Saturday night, she put the boys to bed, curled up under a blanket, and watched SNL. She sat through the bad skits and the musical guests and waited for Weekend Update to start.

Every week, she watched the whole segment in silence, waiting. Every week, he wrapped it up, reached over, and tapped the empty spot where she used to sit. She wondered if he did it unconsciously, or as an inside-joke with himself. Or maybe he knew she was out there, and he wanted to give her this one thing, the one gift that no one could touch.


End file.
